Frogs and love

Yesterday and today I taught a frog dissection lesson for my 8th grade Double Dose Science Class.

It was pretty awesome. Not perfect, but awesome. My students were engaged, interested and eager. Although we couldn't finish the lab, they learned about dissection, frog anatomy and organ functions. Many took pictures, friended me on facebook and shared the pictures with me.

I sincerely love many of my students. There are moments that put me in a state of euphoria that make the hectic teaching days so worth it. I have a student who asks almost everyday if he can skip either his P.E. class or his math recovery class to be in my science class. Another girl asked to get out of her elective class so that she could be in my class doing experiments. Today one student thanked me for a "B" he received on his progress report. I told him, "Don't thank me, I don't give grades, you earn them." He replied, "I get it, but STILL you are the teacher leading me to get the information." When I think about that I get tears in my eyes.

As crazy as these middle schoolers are, and as mean as some of them can be, there are beautiful moments that happen once in a while that really make me happy. Sure I get stressed out sometimes; I can lose my voice sometimes; and sometimes I feel like what I'm doing is not making a difference. But I know that at the end of the day I'm giving it my all so that my students will walk away with more knowledge and thinking ability than when they walked into my classroom.